


New paragraph

by Fuyunoyume



Category: Free!
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, First Love, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Introspection, M/M, Requited Love, Romance, University, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 10:06:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15638532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuyunoyume/pseuds/Fuyunoyume
Summary: Life's like a book, a bad chapter doesn't mean it's the end of the story.





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**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Free isn't mine.

Hiyori's words still resounded in his head like a terrible mantra that repeated indefinitely. _"Nanase, I have heard that everyone who swims with you ends up suffering."_ And even though he wanted to believe that his words were a lie, that he only said it to hurt him, he couldn't deny the truth in its. Rin's tears when he defeated him as children, Makoto's confusion when he forgot his passion for swimming and Ikuya's look of pain when he broke his promise and stopped swimming.

They were three of the most important people in his life. His rival, his brother and his best friend. And he'd failed them all in different ways.

However, one of them had damaged him more than the others, had left him aside ... he had preferred to forget.

It'd been so easy to compare the water with the always kind and constant presence of Makoto and to link his feelings for swimming with the rivalry he'd with Rin, with the passion and the adrenaline that invaded him when they both swam together. This had done that he'd ended up burying deep inside him the easy friendship and mutual understanding that he shared with Ikuya. It was so easier to be guided by Makoto's good feeling and Rin's direct aggressiveness than to decide what he wanted.

That's why, when he'd realized that ... When the pressures of ones and others had drowned him in his last year of high school, he'd realized his mistake. He'd let his life flow as if it were a river, letting others make the decisions that involved him and ignoring the possibility of taking the reins of his destiny.

He'd always been told that he was good at ten, a genius at fifteen and that he would be a normal person at twenty, but that had changed. He didn't know what he was going to be at twenty, but he knew that this time he who would decide what his life would be like. With that new perspective in mind, he'd moved to Tokyo to attend the university that had most convinced him and joined the swim team, but it wasn't until he reunited with Asahi on the first day of school that all the memories he'd left buried in his heart about theirs years in school together came up suddenly. The summer camp to improve their skills, the relays they won and lost as a team, the festivals that came together, the wishes and the broken promises.

From the beginning he knew that Rin was his impulse, someone he wanted to win and overcome, Makoto was his anchor, his brother, his family and Ikuya ... he'd been his best friend despite the little time they'd been together, he was a soulmate, his equal, someone who understood and understood him in the same way.

And now, after five years without seeing him, he'd him in front of him again. Taller and older, but with the same aura as when they'd been friends, with the sportswear of his university and both watching each other with surprised eyes.

"I-Ikuya?" Haruka hear it coming from his throat, while endless emotions crossed the transparent eyes of his friend. Pain, joy, confusion, happiness, sadness, hope and something else he didn't know how to identify. "Sorry for not having kept my promise."


End file.
